Rain not delaying work on Novato city offices

Neither rain nor sleet nor parking concerns have slowed the progress on construction of Novato's new administrative offices downtown, according to the city's public works project manager.

"We were a week and a half ahead of schedule when the rain started (Monday)," project manager Julian Skinner said of the work on the two-story, 18,887-square-foot Machin Avenue building that will house about 70 city employees. The work is expected to be done by fall 2013.

"By the time the rain is finished, we'll probably lose about a week of that schedule gain," but the work still will be slightly ahead of schedule, Skinner said. Work on the structure began in mid-July; city offices are currently in leased space at 75 Rowland Way.

So far, Sausal Corp. workers have excavated an area for the basement and started construction on the foundation for the building, Skinner said.

Before work began, downtown business owners, Novato residents and others voiced concerns about parking because the adjacent parking lot on Machin Avenue is being used as a corporation yard, making it inaccessible to shoppers and others in the downtown area. However, Skinner said he hadn't gotten a single complaint.

"The bulk of the spaces were used by the police department, so creating additional spaces in front of the police department and more spaces in the police garage underneath the building helped," Skinner said.

Downtown merchants seemed to agree.

"Nobody has complained yet," said Marina Viter, who works at ARTrageous Gallery on Grant Avenue.

Along those lines, "parking is always bad here," said Lisa Metz, owner of Klyde Street Pets, also on Grant, "but I haven't heard anything like that. Maybe it's a little worse."

Austin Morris, who described himself as a "minimum wage husband and employee of the month" at Morris & Co. on Grant, said he is concerned that "as the construction gets under way and more workers come onsite, parking will get testier."

In response, "There are only about 12 workers on the job now. After the first of the year, there will be about 40 more workers, and the city has arranged with SMART to use the vacant lot at the corner of Grant and Railroad for those 40 spaces," Skinner said.

Metz and Morris also expressed concerns about how parking will be affected when the building is finished and approximately 70 city employees move in.

Skinner said, "There are 25 spaces in the basement of the new building and a total of 31 spaces with the on-street parking we're going to add and the parking in the plaza. We will be shy a few spaces but have made some of it up with the changes in the police department parking.

"Also, we are looking into maybe extending the lease agreement with the SMART lot and having employees park there or at some other lot in the downtown area," Skinner said.

The next steps for the project will be pouring the concrete for the footing. That's the strip of concrete that runs all the way around the building and holds up the basement walls, according to Skinner. It will take awhile to get things back on track in the wake of this week's rain, he said.

For a blow-by-blow look at how construction of Novato's new downtown city offices is going, interested folks can visit http://oxblue.com/open/kitchell/novato. A camera on the site takes a photo every 12-15 minutes and the pictures are viewable at that website. The city has also put up a page devoted to the project at http://www.cityofnovato.org/Index.aspx?page=1534, with newsletters and links to a video showing how the completed project will look.